Billie Washington holds court at her most familiar home on Jones Street in the Tenderloin...she sits in a chair smoking while the commotion of the city goes on around her.
Brant Ward 9/1/04

Photo: Brant Ward

Billie Washington holds court at her most familiar home on Jones...

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Billie cries while sitting on the street. She sometimes cries when the thinks or talks about her predicament...it has also been a difficult day dealing with beat cops who want her to move all the time.
Billie Burrell has lived on the streets of San Francisco since 1999. Her husband died in 2003 of emphys ema. She slept mostly on Jones Street and is known to many of the homeless people as "Mama." She is best known for her attention to dress and the meticulous way she would clean her area of the street.
Brant Ward 8/18/04

Photo: Brant Ward

Billie cries while sitting on the street. She sometimes cries when...

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Billie always carries a broom...here she cleans up her area of Jones Street before going off to panhandle some distance away.
She believes keeping the sidewalk neat is a responsability. Billie Burrell has lived on the streets of San Francisco since 1999. Her husband died in 2003 of emphys ema. She slept mostly on Jones Street and is known to many of the homeless people as "Mama." She is best known for her attention to dress and the meticulous way she would clean her area of the street.
Brant Ward 9/29/04

Photo: Brant Ward

Billie always carries a broom...here she cleans up her area of...

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After complaining for months about little or no attention from the outreach workers, Billie is approached early one summer morning by Dorothy James, an outreach worker. She later arranges for Billie to get inside.
Billie Burrell has lived on the streets of San Francisco since 1999. Her husband died in 2003 of emphys ema. She slept mostly on Jones Street and is known to many of the homeless people as "Mama." She is best known for her attention to dress and the meticulous way she would clean her area of the street.
Brant Ward 9/29/04

Photo: Brant Ward

After complaining for months about little or no attention from the...

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After years of living on the street, Billie finally gets a room at the Bristol Hotel on Eddy Street...she throws up her arms in sheer delight. She is finally inside.
Billie Burrell has lived on the streets of San Francisco since 1999. Her husband died in 2003 of emphys ema. She slept mostly on Jones Street and is known to many of the homeless people as "Mama." She is best known for her attention to dress and the meticulous way she would clean her area of the street.
Brant Ward 10/6/04

Photo: Brant Ward

After years of living on the street, Billie finally gets a room at...

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Billie, right, talks with friends on Jones Street. Even though she is inside, she comes uptown to panhandle and do business.
Billie Burrell has lived on the streets of San Francisco since 1999. Her husband died in 2003 of emphys ema. She slept mostly on Jones Street and is known to many of the homeless people as "Mama." She is best known for her attention to dress and the meticulous way she would clean her area of the street.
Brant Ward 11/11/04

For five years, 54-year-old Billie Washington has been the fashion queen of the chronically homeless on Jones Street near Ellis Street, one of the grittiest intersections of the Tenderloin. On Oct. 14, city homeless outreach workers who had been talking with her for much of the year finally helped move her into a residential hotel with counseling services -- but nearly every day, she still visits her old corner, where the other homeless people call her "Mama." When she was camping on the street, she was so meticulous about her appearance that she took three hours every day to wash, put on vintage dresses and head scarves, and flawlessly apply makeup -- all under a blanket, next to her shopping cart. She also painstakingly swept her spot on the sidewalk several times a day. Any conversation with her elicits an articulate dissertation -- sometimes so impassioned she cries -- on the frustration of African Americans who cannot rise from poverty, or on literature ranging from Stephen King to Bible verses. Until outreach workers convinced her that their offer of a room was genuine, she said she had been ignored for years by street counselors and distrusted their overtures. "You have to keep your own dignity, because, otherwise, people treat a black woman like me like dirt," Washington said recently. "I stay with God, and I read the Psalms when I feel down."